Dressing Coffins for the Souls I've left Behind
by long-neon-nights
Summary: Before she'd given into her feelings for him, she'd feared his darkness. Feared what it might mean for her, about her, if she could want a monster.


She was starting to shiver as a fresh layer of sweat dried against her skin. The hand holding her hips in place stroked her hip bone tenderly, in direct contrast to the mouth of its owner, which was currently pressed in a bruising kiss against her inner thigh.

She could feel the pull of the blood as he fed on her, the act far more intimate than any of the orgasms she had already had tonight. When she had shown up on his doorstep several hours ago, shortly after dusk, they hadn't spoken. The gleam in his eyes had made her shiver, as it always did no matter how many times they did this. He'd led her straight to his bedroom, and for hours had wrought pleasure from her, unrelenting, animal, and visceral in his need for her.

His pace had been demanding, never once allowing her to reciprocate – but holding her in place with his hands and his tongue and wringing every ounce of sweet agony from her that she could stand, and even then continuing until she was sobbing and begging him to stop. Still he didn't.

One of her hands rested now, her fingers tangled in the sweat slick curls of his hair, the other still clinging to a pillow somewhere above her head. He was feeding now and she knew she would have a respite, a breather, before he would once again continue to worship her, a thousand years worth of longing, loneliness and need for affection pouring itself into an act older even than him.

This thing between them, whatever it was, was complicated at best. He loved her, she knew, though he had never really said the words. Couldn't say the words after being denied the feeling for a millennium. He told her in every other way possible, and tonight he was choosing to do so with his body. Before she'd given in to her feelings for him, she had feared his darkness. Feared what it would mean for her, about her, if she could want a monster.

She had been right. This relationship was dark, and scary, and intense, and they fought as often as they loved. They worshipped each other like religion, making sacrafices at the alters of each others souls. They lay side by side from dusk til dawn in his bed and never touched, sharing stories and thoughts and dreams, and desires.

They created a history all their own, in these sheets, hidden behind dark drapes in a mansion built to home his family, reunited after centuries. It now stood as a mausoleum, a tomb, a shrine to a dream that would never be. To hopes that had been killed with so many members of his family.

They made it their castle. A place where no one would find them, where no one would hate her for loving him.

She felt his tongue soothe the bite on her leg as he finally pulled away from her and crawled up the length of her body, kissing her when he reached her mouth. Allowing her to taste her own blood mixed with the remnants of her sex.

When he had his fill of kissing her, he fell to her side on the bed, propped up on his own elbow, his other hand resting possessively over her heart.

He still hasn't spoken a word, though she can no longer say the same, having spent much of the night begging and pleading and breathing his name as if in prayer. His eyes are soft now, as they look into hers, and she knows now that the animal has been sated for the time being.

She can tell by looking at the window that they have a few hours yet, before she will sneak away and pretend to her friends that she has spent the night in her own bed, alone.

For now though, they have this time together. As he opens his mouth to speak, she waits with baited breath for what will follow. She lives for these nights. These times when he is not a monster to be feared or killed, but a man, so full of passion and life and so wanting to share it with her.

Last night he told her about Renaissance Italy. The week before, it was island hopping in Greece with Rebecca just before they came to Chicago in the 20's. She'd loved that story, his voice so full of love and adoration for his baby sister. He had a heart after all.

Every night, he gave her these histories. Gave her himself in snippets and time stamps from his life. One day soon he would leave Mystic Falls behind. It would be just another dot on a map littered with them. They both knew he would be leaving alone. She was still too ashamed of the darker parts of herself. The parts he saw and fed on and embraced with ease. Here, in this castle they had built themselves, he could absolve her of the guilt she wrapped around herself like a second skin.

But she wasn't ready to shed it completely yet. No one would ever know about these nights spent with him. He would leave, and she would stay. And one day, in a year or even a century, she would show up at his door, ready for him.


End file.
